


ride out

by searwrites (sears)



Series: dudebro au [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Domestic Boyfriends, First Time, Jealousy, M/M, Sort of? - Freeform, Surfing, mentions brief unwanted sexual interaction between male and female characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 16:18:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2074770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sears/pseuds/searwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this was for the (multiple) anon requests of: "dudebro au where they finally do it" which has been THE MOST REQUESTED THING EVER. i tried to flesh it out into something more substantial :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	ride out

It’s only 8am and the sun is already out, as it always seems to be in this place, the beams of it streaming through the cheap plastic blinds, cutting through the pillow by Eren’s face like liquid gold. The shithead below them is already pumping the Devildriver, the double-bass drums like a mimic of the headache Eren knows he’ll get if he tries to keep sleeping through it. The fact that Jean  _can_  sleep through the seemingly constant noise - the loud and proud metalhead below them, the constant pool parties in the complex pool at the center of the building, the cars driving the streets, the way the people here never seem to sleep - is kind of ridiculous.

What’s even more ridiculous is that he’s  _here_. In Jean’s bed, with Jean, his face right fucking next to Jean. Jean sleeps like a baby, his face in a tiny pinched frown, his hands curled into fists beneath his chin, his lips pushed out into a lazy pout - and Eren can’t seem to diffuse the urge to kiss him, so he does, because he can. Jean must not have been very asleep either, because his innocently curled fist reaches out to grip the back of Eren’s neck, pulling him back in as he tries to slip away.

“I think Captain Wrecking Crew downstairs needs to invest in his own studio soon before I headbutt him in neighborly greeting,” Eren grumbles into Jean’s mouth.

Jean chuckles, the sound of it warmer than the small slits of sun that slice across Eren’s bicep.

“You’re too hostile to the locals, outsider.”

“There isn’t anything local about a grease-mullet and a vespa.” Eren thinks of the blue hunk of metal sitting in their parking lot, wonders if the guy would even notice if he keyed it.

“You’re in California now,” Jean says, grinning so wide it gives him tiny little wrinkles around the corners of his mouth, his eyes pushed into slits, looking like he still can’t really believe it. He also looks high as fuck, but in that sleepy kind of way, and Eren has never been so stupidly happy this early in the morning. “Everything is local, in its own way.”

Eren thinks about it, and though he has a point, it doesn’t quite feel that way. They say nobody in California is from California anymore, but that can’t be true. Jean cups the side of Eren’s face not pressed into the pillow in his hand, pinches the shell of his ear and tugs, in the way he gets when he just wants to touch him, anywhere, in any way. Eren still feels a little like a chess piece from another set, a missing part, something that might blend in but will never really fit. But it’s only been two weeks, so maybe that’s something that just happens, over time.

He misses his mother terribly, he realizes, day after day as Jean leaves at 8:30 and Eren is left to make his own coffee and sift through their sparsely stocked fridge. Not like she ever cooked phenomenal breakfasts or anything, or that Eren would eat them if she did, but she would always have some snack packs in the bottom drawer for Eren. Or even those pepperjack cheese sticks that Eren only recently realized are expensive as shit - Eren’s never had much of a traditional breakfast appetite.

So all this means is finding food on the way to work, which is well past breakfast now, nearly 11am. He ate what was left of a bag of hot cheetos that Jean bought from the vending machine after his class, his mouth probably stained orange, his lips still burning with that lingering sting from the flavor. The only options he runs into along the way are a man selling oranges out of a truck and then an ice cream stand by the park that charges five bucks a cone - it’s like everything in San Diego is laced with gold, or cocaine, or something equally extortionate.

The upside is that Eren works at a mall food court, so that only excuses his grocery-type laziness. You’ve got chopped salads, greek wraps, burgers, pizzas, organic fucking rabbit food that costs the price of small airplane, and then Eren’s home for the next five hours - a hot dog joint. And not just any hot dog joint, a  _Dog On A Stick_  joint, which is apparently infamous around here, though Eren had never heard of it before in his life. At least he’s got the lesser of the ridiculous uniforms - only a clown-like multicolored tank top and a blue baseball cap with a giant button pinned to it that says  _“ask me to dip your dog”_  in bold, ridiculous letters. The girls have to wear what Eren can only describe as a rainbow colored KFC bucket on their heads, with skimpy little shorts or a skirt that also match the color scheme.

It’s not so bad, and it pays for the little groceries they do end up buying, but it can be somewhat humiliating at times, if Eren really thinks about it. Everyone he knows is at school or doing something to work toward a career, and here Eren is frying corn dogs for the wannabe rich and famous. His only real desperation for taking this job was that he promised Jean to pay half the rent, and it’s a promise he plans to keep.

And it’s okay - even if he does have to deal with coming home to Jean in his boxers and nothing else, his laptop balanced on his bony knees, while he taunts Eren with a lewd  _“you can dip my dog anytime, babe,”_  coupled with a painfully obnoxious wink. But he’s got his glasses on, his hair a fluffy mess from skating home from school, and the whole boxers only thing is unfair, so Eren never gets as mad or offended as he could. He usually just socks the idiot in the shoulder, bites his lip before he kisses it, and then leaves him sufficiently teased as he changes his shirt to go skate off the stench of mustard and relish.

-

Once the weekend hits, Jean takes the liberty of introducing Eren to Marco, one of Jean’s friends from school before he moved out of the state. He seems nice enough, and he brought a shy but sweet looking girl with him - Mina, she introduces herself as, tugging on ends of her pigtails. Marco just looks kind of like Jean, but with more freckles and less effort put into his hair. Eren finds himself wondering if Mina is Marco’s girlfriend, or if she’s related or something, but doesn’t get the chance to ask because Jean introduces Marco as  _‘my best friend’_.

It takes every ounce of concentrated effort for Eren not to show the sting of those words on his face. To force himself to reel it in, to be casual about extending a hand to Marco and saying, “Nice to meet you”.

“Nice to finally meet you,” Marco says with a beaming grin, and Eren can’t help but think of Armin.

After all these years, and he’d written Armin off. Jean had done the same thing, but he’d apparently never replaced the Marco shaped hole in his life - not like Eren did with Armin, but it isn’t quite the same. He would have thought Jean was his best friend, but maybe that term doesn’t fit them anymore.

“I thought we could go surf,” Marco says, punching Jean playfully in the arm, while Mina keeps casting shy glances over at Eren, like she’s in awe he’s even here. He wonders if she knew they were dating before coming here - neither of them looked all that surprised when Jean introduced him as his ‘boyfriend’.

“Hell yeah, dude,” Jean says, brofisting him back, and Mina claps to herself in muted glee over the fact.

Jean ruffles Eren’s hair a little to get him moving, the momentum of his palm like a push in the right direction, and Eren suddenly feels way overdressed - even in cargo shorts and a tshirt. Mina is wearing a flimsy little sundress that looks like it’s made of the same material as paper lanterns, and both Marco and Jean are in loose fitting tanks and board shorts. Eren goes to grab his skateboard, just in case, but Jean slaps his hand away and drags him away from the apartment.

“Surf today, skate later,” he says, pulling at Eren with a fist balled in his old Etnies tee. One wouldn’t exist without the other, he figures.

When they get to the beach it isn’t even hot, it’s actually a little chilly in the breeze, and both Jean and Marco immediately peel their tanks off once they haul the boards away from the roof of Marco’s Range Rover. It takes Eren a second to notice, but there’s only two surf boards in their possession, and the cynical side of Eren can’t help but wonder if that wasn't at least a little bit intentional.

“We’ll ride out for a little then we can share and get you trying to balance, okay?” Jean says to Eren, Marco way ahead of him, kicking up sand as he sprints towards the water. Jean is paused, lifting his brows in that apologetic way he does when he knows Eren will take this badly, like he’s waiting for the petulant punch.

“Go ahead,” Eren says, conscious of Mina settling quietly onto a towel on the sand at his side, suddenly wishing he didn’t let Jean smack his hand away from his skateboard. “I’m good, dude.”

Eren decides to not be an awkward dick, and sits next to Mina on the extra part of her towel she graciously left for Eren to occupy. She looks a little nervous, and Eren wonders if that’s just how she is, or if it’s more to do with him. He had a reputation back home for being more than a little off-putting.

“So, how do you like California?” she asks him.

Eren feels too nervous to make eye contact, so instead he focuses on Jean, watches his body shimmering in the wash of water over skin, and the way the length of his torso bends to the kinds of curves that he always seems to prefer riding on asphalt - those sorts of long, winding bends that require a little too much calculated balance for Eren to master.

“It’s good, yeah,” he replies, chewing on his lip. “So, uh, what do you do?” he adds.

“I’m going for my design degree,” she says, with an effortless cheer that makes Eren cringe a little, for reasons he won’t examine too deeply. “What about you? Jean says you want to work in a skateshop? I know a guy who designs custom decks!”

“Really?” Eren asks, somewhat intrigued by the idea of art for boards only, but then put off when he thinks about Jean making up these ambitions for him, just to make him seem like less of a waster to his friends. He never once mentioned getting a job at a shop, though he wouldn’t turn it down, of course.

“Yeah, he drew out the pattern on Marco’s surf board,” she says, pointing, and Eren squints but can’t really make it out other than a vague mash of color. He should have paid attention when they pulled them off the car, but Eren’s mind was kind of elsewhere.

“Cool,” he says, because he doesn’t want to be rude, but he doesn’t have much to add to the conversation.

By the time they head home, Jean and Marco both glistening in a mixture of sweat and salt water, pulling their tanks back over their heads so hastily that the fabric sticks to their skin, Eren isn’t even surprised Jean has forgotten to take him out for his first session. He’s not dressed for it, for starters - the weight of his soaking wet cargo shorts would fuck his already delicate sense of balance up, and Jean looks like he’s had the kind of week where that was needed - where a tumble into some forceful waves, all at the mercy of nature, was necessary to knock the fuzz out of his head from studying all the time.

It isn’t the worst he’s ever felt - because he still, at the end of the day, goes home with Jean - but it feels like swallowing a pit, something that seems filling until it’s sitting uncomfortably in your stomach, occupying space it doesn’t belong in. Jean kisses behind Eren’s ear when they walk through the door, the heat of his skin so radiant that Eren can feel him approaching before he sees it, and it just- it isn’t terrible, but what is he supposed to think? He’s the boyfriend from out of town with a false-start ambition and no fallback plan - and he can’t even surf.

Self pity is an ugly emotion, one Eren promised himself he would shed for good before he moved out here and ruined both their lives with it, so he shrugs it off as best he can and leaves to go skate once Jean jumps in the shower.

-

Eren has one of those days where you think inhaling the fumes of a carburetor in a locked garage sounds like a good way to end it. The regional manager was there for his entire shift, poking and prodding around, correcting almost every little thing they were out of compliance with. On top of that Eren got stuck on cleaning duty, which meant he had the privilege of wiping away the result of someone trying to feed a corndog to their shih-tzu. Just - nothing  _big_ , but enough small little miseries to make you wish the day would be fucking over already.

On the way home all he can think about is Jean. That days like this are fine, as long as he has Jean to look forward to - sitting in his stupid boxers with his stupid glasses, doing his stupid homework and smiling everytime he catches Eren looking at him. It almost makes him whimper, an actual physical need for the warmth of Jean’s skin, for Jean to hold him and tell him he smells like mustard and kiss his closed, exhausted eyes.

He heads right for the bedroom when he gets there, but something makes him pause. There’s no one in the kitchen or the living room, but there’s voices - Jean’s and someone elses, and it sounds like they’re coming from the bedroom. There’s this horrible manifest of dread that sits like a stone in Eren’s gut - like Jean maybe isn’t safe, or that something bad is happening. Eren cautiously slips down the hall, and opens up their bedroom door to see Jean sitting sideways on the bed, facing a person he’s never seen before - and he’s handing Jean what looks to be a white plastic container - the kind usually used for pain killers.

“Uh,” Eren blurts intelligently.

“Hey dude,” the nameless guy says, brightening like he wasn’t just caught giving Eren’s boyfriend pills. He looks like a douchebag to the Nth degree - his hair overgrown and flipping out in dumb little flicks, like the most stereotypical California beach waster Eren’s ever seen.

Jean jumps a little, which should be satisfying but it only makes Eren’s chest ache. “Shit, hey, you were a little late I thought you went to skate or something.”

Eren just stands in the doorway, glaring at Jean and waiting for him to explain what in the fuck he just walked in on.

“I’m Dieter,” Douchebag says, standing like he’s going to try and shake Eren’s hand, which Eren very pointedly ignores.

“He goes to my school, we’re doing our biology project together,” Jean adds hastily when he notices Eren won't look away from him.

“You sure it’s not chemistry?” Eren bites, tipping his chin in the direction of the pocket Jean just stashed the little white bottle in.

“I should go, man,” Douchebag says, “Nice to meet you dude, hope you like it here in Cali.”

Eren ignores him completely, until he hears the front door shut, and then barely manages to keep from exploding.

“You a pillhead now or some shit?” he asks, and the way Jean immediately laughs kind of hurts.

“No, jesus dude.” Jean stands, pulling the bottle from his pocket and then popping the lid. Inside are a few pre-rolled joints along with some plastic wrapped grass. “I got it for us.”

Eren’s heart is still beating too wild to really process that it’s okay, that nothing bad happened, so he still kind of shouts when he says, “Why the  _fuck_  are you in class with your dealer?”

Jean sighs, popping the lid back on the bottle before tossing it to the bed where it bounces once, pitifully, like the atmosphere is draining all the energy out of the room. “He’s not my dealer, he just works at the head shop,” he says, and the way he approaches Eren and starts wiping a smudge of something - probably fucking dog vomit - away from his forehead is mildly infuriating.

“Same thing,” Eren grumbles, losing steam now that Jean has his hands on him. “I thought we _left_  high school.”

“Dieter’s cool, man, stop,” Jean says, and then his hand moves to the back of Eren’s neck, pulling him in. He’s caked in sweat and grime, but Jean doesn’t seem to care, just kisses him like always - slow enough to be soothing, but hard enough to get Eren’s heart pounding.

Jean holds Eren’s face, walks them both backwards until they collapse on the bed, Eren extra careful to move the pill bottle so Jean doesn’t roll over onto it. When Jean catches him holding it, looming over him, he says, “I got it for us. I don’t get high on my own.”

“You used to.”

“That was before you,” Jean admits, honesty painting his cheeks a little pink, like he’s embarrassed to admit he was ever lonely. “There’s roof access on the second building, we could go up there, you know? See the stars from somewhere different this time.”

Eren whimpers, collapsing onto Jean and pressing his face into his neck, inhaling the warm, familiar scent of his skin. He would have lost his shit if Jean started taking weird pills from tweakish surf bums, and he should say that to him somehow, but it’s too hard. It’s easier to just let Jean make a mess of him, to prove his worries wrong, every single time.

“You smell like mustard,” Jean laughs, and Eren groans, swatting Jean’s grabbing, apologetic hands away when he stands to jump in the shower.

-

Marco and Mina have been much more friendly with Eren - offering to take him places when Jean has class, Marco insisting that he learns to surf, that it’ll change his life. Eren ends up deciding to stop being a pussy about it and to take him up on the offer - the worst that can happen is he’ll suck, but he’s always got skating, that isn’t going to magically go away when he steps foot in the ocean.

He goes with Marco to Jean’s school to pick him up after class, actually somewhat dressed for the beach this time, Mina chattering excitedly in the back about some 3d printer thing she got donated to her class. She’s still arguing with Marco that one day they’ll be able to print surf boards when they leave the car, and Eren is about to say she’s probably right, except he catches sight of Jean - and then subsequently Dieter, who has an arm wrapped around Jean’s shoulder, hanging off of him and looking like a lovedrunk fucking school girl.

“Ew, Dieter,” Mina says quietly, like she hadn’t meant to, and when Eren looks at her questioningly, she says, “He’s just. Kind of creepy.”

Eren vehemently agrees, but he keeps that to himself.

Marco calls Jean over, and then Jean only peels Dieter’s stupid clingy arm off of him when he sees Eren, which is equally as satisfying as it is frustrating.

“ _E-Dog_  here is gonna try riding some waves!” Marco shouts at Jean, and Eren is only just beginning to get used to how corny some of the things that come out of Marco's mouth are. Mina just seems endeared by it, while Jean doesn’t seem affected - probably used to it by now.

“Finally,” Jean says, grinning all wide with squinted eyes, grabbing Eren by the jaw and kissing him with more teeth than lips. Eren is about to forget the whole thing, until Jean turns around and makes sure to say bye to Dieter, and then it’s like he’s got a happy switch that someone’s flipped to  _off._

The whole ride to the beach is like an excuse to let the wound fester - Marco is such a chatter-nut around Jean, they talk almost the whole way there, so it lets Eren sit and brood by himself, even though Jean is sitting right next to him. Why _that_  guy, of all people? Why can’t he be happy with Marco, or just him? Why does he need another dude all up on his nuts, what happened to all his female friends?

It’s stupid and childish to think of it that way, but Eren can’t help it. He’s jealous because this guy is filling in the blanks where Eren can’t be around - the hole at his side that used to be filled by Eren last year, in high school. And there really isn’t anything he can do about it.

“Hey,” Jean whispers, being intentionally seductive and leaning right into his ear once they’re parked, which only makes Eren swat at him. “You’re spacing, dude. Let’s go.”

They walk down the shore together, Eren a little awkward at holding the board Marco’s letting him borrow, not used to the bulky shape of it. Mina makes her little perch again in the sand with her towel, holding out her phone to take pictures.

“Alright, straddle the board and just get used to sitting on it first,” Jean says, laughing a little as Eren struggles to climb up onto the thing, splashing around like an idiot in the water.

“I thought Marco was teaching me,” Eren huffs, out of breath after finally getting up onto the board.

“I think Jean doesn’t like other people touching his things,” Marco says in a mock-whisper to Eren.

“Huh, funny concept,” Eren mutters, and only Jean seems to pick up on his tone, his idiotic grin slipping from his face.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Eren says quickly, “What next?”

The next step is to get him to stand, which is fucking impossible. Standing on a moving board is one thing, but a stationary one with a moving backdrop is like trying to walk upside down, it just isn’t happening. Not only is Eren’s balance not that great, most of his skating finesse a product of muscle memory, but the wax on the board is sparse, which means it’s slippery whenever the water sloshes over it.

“ _Fuck_!” Eren yells, after capsizing for what feels like the hundredth time. Jean starts laughing at him again, and Eren decides he’s done, his face burning in anger, sick of being Jean’s little fucking project. “Fuck you,” he grumbles, and then swims to shore, leaving Marco’s board there for Jean to deal with.

“Hey!” Jean shouts, running after him in the sand and dropping his own board once he’s out of the water. Eren feels bad when he looks back and sees Marco carting the one he left behind, and now puzzling over how to carry the third one by himself. “The fuck is your problem, man?”

It’s so hard not to say it, not to say  _‘you’re my problem, you and your oblivious fucking approval of everyone, how can you not see how obvious Dieter is?’_. He just grumbles a short, “nothing,” and claims he’s tired, he had a long day, he isn’t quite ready for this.

Marco looks more sad that he’s giving up than anything else, and he promises to try again later, but that it’s just not happening today. When Eren shuts his eyes on the drive home, ignoring Jean, he pretends he can see things the way he wants them to be - no Dieter, no shitty food court job, no missing Jean when he’s gone for five minutes. He sees himself being successful, in a suit or some shit, earning enough money to put Jean through his entire college career. He sees Jean surfing, and Eren skating, and both of them being okay with difference.

For the first time since moving here, Eren begins to question if the reality of things is really all that great.

-

It ends up being a succession of miserable days at work, and today is no different. Not because of the regional manager anymore, but because someone else on shift splashed themselves with burning hot oil and had to go home, so now Eren is working a double, essentially.

But that doesn't hold a candle to what Eren has to witness next. In fact, being told to bend over and lick the regional manager's shoes would be preferable to this, because Jean decides to show up at lunchtime, with fucking Dieter looking like his giddy date.

“Hey babe,” Jean says when he’s next in line, and Eren seethes, his hands beginning to shake from anger. Jean at least looks a little timid, like he’s now questioning if this was a good idea or not.

“How can I help you?” Eren grunts mechanically.

“Dieter said he was craving a dog after I told him where you worked,” Jean adds, voice almost apologetic.

_I’m sure he was_ , Eren thinks, and then physically flinches when Dieter says, “Yeah, bro, plus you guys have those, like, kooky outfits.”

Eren is beyond angry now, the shakes having left him in winded resignation. Now he just feels like sitting down on the pathetic plastic lawn chair they have in the back room and crying.

Dieter orders a Mondo-Dog, and Jean gets an original. Dieter does this thing where he gazes all dreamy at Jean every time he speaks, and it makes Eren sick. The idea that that drunk, floaty feeling he gets around Jean is something someone else can feel, and all while being so close to him too - it isn’t nice.

Eren can’t even look at them, staring down at the register while he punches everything in. Dieter goes to grab them both a seat, and then Jean dips his head down, worriedly trying to catch Eren’s eyes. It’s like he knows - and he  _should_  fucking know - that it’s embarrassing being treated like he’s something to marvel at. It’s humiliating, and Jean knows him well enough to be able to figure this out on his own. It’s like  _‘hey, here’s my loser boyfriend who works at the mall food court, let us intellectual stoner-types go observe him in his natural habitat’._

“Hey,” Jean says softly, once Eren has handed him the tray with both their orders on it. “See you later, yeah?”

Eren nods, half scowling - as if he has any other friends, or literally anywhere else to go but to Jean after this.

By the time Eren finally gets home, after having stayed out an extra hour or so to skate to avoid Jean, his exhaustion is bone-deep, his limbs seemingly filled with lead. He doesn’t even get a minute to unwind, and Jean is on him like shit on velcro.

“Why were you mad at me earlier?”

Eren flops down to the couch, drops his head into his hands with a groan. “If you don’t know then we have bigger problems here.”

“How am I supposed to just _know_  this shit, dude?” Jean half-yells, the volume of it startling Eren to look up at him - he’s usually the more subdued one in these types of arguments, calmer.

“Just think, for one second, why it would be a little uncomfortable for me to have to serve you and your new biology-bitch your fucking lunch,” Eren snaps.

“Oh, okay, so that’s it. You don’t like my friend, so I can’t come see you at lunch when I want to,  _god for-fucking-bid_.”

“Jean, he is  _so_  fucking obvious with you! How can you not see that?”

Jean starts pulling at the back of his hair, laughing that hollow laugh that tells Eren he’s close to cracking up over this.

“He doesn’t, and you’re so fucking paranoid you can’t even see straight.”

“I know!” Eren yells, so loud this time it makes his voice hoarse, and he hates the way Jean jumps at the sound of it. “I fucking know, okay, I know I’m paranoid. That doesn’t make it cool for you to show up with him at my job, dude.”

Jean says nothing, just seems intent on letting Eren deflate a little, keeping his distance but still looking at Eren like it hurts him they still have it out like this. It hurts Eren too, but he thinks, this time, it isn’t his fault.

“I’m sorry it made you uncomfortable,” Jean says evenly, and he doesn’t sound all that sorry, really, but Eren is too tired to fight back. “It isn’t like that though.”

Eren does what he usually does when he’s too angry to know how to deal with Jean - he dodges, walks right past him into their room and slams the door behind him. It’s childish and immature, he knows, but even Jean knows that sometimes Eren needs a while to cool off, so he leaves him be.

-

Eren decides to do the only thing he knows to do when he’s upset and feeling lost - he talks to his mother.

“Write it all down,” she says.

“Write what down? A hate list? That doesn’t sound like you-”

“No, Eren, make a list of what’s bothering you. Then you can organize it, you know? Write down what you think would fix each thing, and how you can achieve that. It makes things less overwhelming,” she says, and her tinny voice over the phone makes Eren miss her horribly. He wonders if she made a list - a pro’s and con’s one about her father, why she doesn’t need him.

“What if that doesn’t work?” he asks, gnawing on his lower lip, making the inside taste coppery from blood.

“Then talk to Jean. Trust him to help you out, okay?”

“Mmkay,” he hums, and saying goodbye to her is still a little hard.

So, Eren takes her advice. He chalks up a list of everything that’s been making him miserable lately, and it falls into a few different categories, the front runners being ‘work’ and ‘douchebag’. It doesn’t really get him anywhere, until he stops for a second to think about it, to maybe not pull from indivudual threads, but look at the bigger picture.

What he comes to realize is that he doesn’t hate Dieter - he can’t hate him, he hardly knows him. The only person he could possibly feel strong enough to ever hate is Jean, and sometimes it feels like he does, but Jean isn’t the problem. He envies Dieter - not because of the time he gets to spend with Jean, but because he’s doing something with his life. Eren can call him a beach waster all he wants, but who’s the one dipping hot dogs in the mall for a living? He feels inadequate, and it’s as though Dieter is the person he wishes he could be for Jean - someone to go to class with, someone with goals and ambition.

Now that he has it all mapped out, he isn’t so sure how to fix it. His mom made it sound easy - just write it out, like it will come with the flow of pen moving over paper - but it isn’t, not at all. How does one fix inadequacy? How does one stop being a useless sack of shit and build up their sense of worth?

_You go to college_ , some vague voice in the back of his head supplies, sounding eerily like Armin.

Eren hates school, but can it be much worse than hating his job? And he’s alone out here, he would probably have to keep the job to help pay for rent and go to school, if that’s what he decided to do. It would be the very definition of spreading himself thin, a daily miracle it would be if he didn’t snap at Jean every night, but would it be worth it in the long run? To get a job he can be proud of, to not wonder what Jean says to his friends about him - to just feel proud of himself enough not to worry about this kind of shit.

Eren ends up snatching Jean’s laptop from his backpack one night, after slipping out of bed at 2am when he can't sleep, his mind reeling with possibility.  _That’s what this is,_ that voice says to him again, _this is your chance to do whatever you want with your life._

So he opens it up and searches for colleges, universities, physical education degrees. It’s all a little overwhelming and expensive looking, so he decides to reel it back and start somewhere closer to the ground level - community college. There’s one only a short ways away from Jean’s school, and it’s cheap. He could definitely afford to take classes there, get his 2 years in, and then transfer to somewhere else. They even offer work co-op - where they set you up with a representative employer for the course and then give you credit for it.

He gets so deep into his research - looking up the courses: social services aide, audio visual production, physical education, the list seems ridiculously long - that he even ends up plotting out bus routes, mapping it all to see if it would be do-able to skate every day. He could quit his job in a year and get on this co-op program and maybe stop hating himself every day for being some kind of a failure, dead weight for Jean.

Looking at scholarships is a little daunting, but by the looks of things his better-than-average grades in high school might actually get him somewhere. He would have to pay out of state tuition, too, unless he waited a year - which the more Eren looks into this, the more he thinks he could actually do it, and soon.

He’s so wrapped up in it all, fifty different tabs open with various morsels of information, that he doesn’t notice Jean shuffling into the living room, his face all scrunched up in sleep, squinting like the blue light from the laptop on Eren’s face is too bright.

“Why aren’t you in bed with me?” Jean asks, sounding pitifully confused.

Eren thinks about telling him, but gets struck with this wash of embarrassment - of admitting that he thinks people like Dieter are better than him, that he wants to be more like them, even though that isn’t really what this is at all.

“Um, I’m busy,” he says, and his heart tugs at him when Jean just stands there frowning for half a minute, before shuffling back in the room.

_It’ll be worth it_ , he promises Jean silently.

-

Jean decides enough is enough after about a week.

He confronts Eren one day when he gets off work, sitting on the couch with one leg crossed over the other, wearing his glasses and a face that says he’s ready for a fight. He thinks Eren’s been avoiding him, which is kind of a fair assessment - Eren’s just been so caught up in registering for the spring semester, not ready to tell Jean until everything is in place.

“I stopped hanging out with Dieter,” Jean says gravely, like he died or something, “Mina told me some shit. I should have believed you, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t, uh, have to apologize for that,” Eren says, shifting awkwardly near the doorway, until Jean breaks some of his stoic resolve and turns to ask Eren to sit with him.

“What’s happening with you?” Jean asks, almost whispering, “With us?”

Eren swallows nervously. “I’m not happy, so I’m trying to fix it.”

Jean’s face falls horribly. “Why don’t you tell me this? I love you, why would you not tell me you’re unhappy here?”

“Because it isn’t something you can fix,” Eren says, groaning and running a hand over his face, shrugging into his shoulders in the way he does when he gets nervous, called out.

“I could at least try,” Jean says, sounding wounded.

“It’s okay,” Eren says, lifting his face from his hands and taking a deep breath, steeling himself. Now is the time to tell him. “I’m going to college, I’ve decided.”

Eren feels like he’s sitting on the edge of his seat, his heart beating wildly, biting the inside of his cheek. He’s waiting for Jean to burst and tell him how proud he is, how happy, but Jean just slumps backwards and his eyes well up, and  _shit_ \- he looks like he’s going to  _cry_.

“You’re leaving me?” Jean mutters, his voice so wobbly and unstable it makes Eren moan in sympathy. “Please don’t, I’m so sorry, I’ll spend more time with you, please let me-”

“ _No_ , you idiot,” Eren interrupts, pulling Jean’s face to his, making sure he  _gets it_  this time. “I’m going to college  _here_.”

“What?” Jean asks, his eyes all hazy and wet.

“There’s a city campus for the community college, it’s like fifteen minutes from here. I could get a bus there, or I could skate, even though it’s kinda far to skate- _mmf_.”

Jean ends up collapsing on Eren, kissing him so desperately that he misses his mouth most of the time, and then keeps grabbing at his face like he can’t believe he’s real, he’s still here.

“You’re serious? You’re going to go to school here, dude?”

“Yeah,” Eren says, softer now, their noses touching. “I got a scholarship too, so as long as my grades don’t suck I don’t really have to pay for it, but I’ll keep working too.”

Jean just curses under his breath and keeps kissing Eren, small little pecks peppered across his cheeks and his nose, worshipful in a way that makes Eren’s entire body feel warm and light.

They end up going to bed early that night, both of them emotionally exhausted, and Eren still buzzing with anxious nerves. Jean just clings to Eren, refuses to let go, so sleepily affectionate that it makes Eren’s heart thump heavily in his chest.

Laying on the same pillow means their faces are close, and something about it makes it feel infinitely more private than usual, like the rest of the world is waiting now that they’ve figured out how to make things better.

“I’m sorry for being a dick, dude,” Eren whispers, and Jean smirks a little, “I’ve just been stressed out because I want this to work. I want  _us_  to work.”

“It’s okay, I’m glad you were being a dick if it got you to want to go back to school,” Jean mumbles.

“And fuck that Dieter guy, man,” Eren grumbles, still reeling from hearing what Jean said Mina had told him - that he stuck a hand up her skirt at a party and asked her if she ever ‘did dupes’, gesturing over to Marco. “You want fucking pot, I’ll buy it for you, jesus, there’s like fifty head shops down here anyway.”

Jean just laughs, his smile a little lopsided from being drowsy, petting down Eren’s face with his hand.

“You’re such a jealous idiot sometimes,” he says fondly.

“I’m not,” Eren bites back, melting a little when Jean leans in and licks the corner of his mouth. “I like Marco, at least.”

Jean just hums, stroking down Eren’s hairline, tracing the edge of his jaw and then his cheeks. Eren tries to look at Jean like he’s crazy, which probably means he looks at him like he’s hopelessly in love, which perhaps explains why Jean starts tracing the outline of Eren’s mouth. Eren shivers, something bold striking through his gut, making him quick to part his lips, kissing and then sucking gently on the pads of Jean’s fingers.

Jean’s eyes go all dark, his gaze flitting between Eren’s eyes and his mouth, the slippery wet of Eren’s tongue slicking in between his fingers. Jean moans quietly, shakily, and then whispers, “I want you in me, dude - please?”

They’ve never even done this much - blow jobs and hands, yeah, sure. The conditioner in the bathroom became their best friend for a while, until Jean actually went out and bought lube and they discovered the mind blowing properties of rubbing off on each other, dick to dick. But this, this is different. Eren’s been too scared to ask, and Jean seems too worried about spooking Eren, so it never came up.

“Are you sure?” Eren asks, his voice hushed, like they’re at home still, hiding from their parents.

“Yes,” Jean breathes, pulling back his fingers to kiss Eren, moaning all high and needy, right into Eren’s mouth.

Eren flips him onto his back, marvels at the spread out mess he makes, his limbs all loose and open. They both strip their tops off, and then Eren tugs down Jean’s shorts. He hops off the bed to strip himself, and crawling back in between Jean’s legs, the both of them fully naked, is dizzying.

The way Jean spreads himself, each quivering breath making his stomach shiver, the way his cock bobs every time Eren touches him, it makes it feel like maybe the world will end after this - that it’s too good, nothing bad has happened in too long, it can’t last.

Eren dips down and kisses Jean hard, desperate for the taste of him, his arms already shaking. Jean hands Eren the lube they have by the bed, presses it into his hand like some kind of ceremonial baton that Eren isn’t quite sure how to carry. It feels that monumental, even though Eren knows that it isn’t - it’s not some ritualistic loss or gain, it’s just trusting each other enough to try something different.

“You sure you want this?” Eren asks, huffing the words against Jean’s panting mouth, cursing inwardly at the way Jean tips his hips towards Eren’s lube-slicked hand.

“Yes, fuck,” he whispers, and it turns into an almost startled moan at the first cautious press of Eren’s finger.

Eren's entire hand is trembling, shaking with nerves and anxious excitement. Jean just freezes up for a moment, his eyes closed and his mouth open and wet, so wet, his tongue licking the dryness of his lips occasionally. It takes just a second, and then Jean starts pushing down, the tight warmth of him pulling Eren’s finger deeper, hungrily. Eren was afraid he’d pull Jean apart if they ever did this, but he wants it, clearly, his feet planted flat on the mattress, fucking Eren’s hand in shaky little jerks.

Eren teases his hole with a second finger, marveling at every minute twitch of Jean beneath him, at the way he so readily accepts the other finger, and then another. By the time Eren is so wrapped up in the wet heat of his body, worried that he might come before he even has the chance to enter Jean, Jean begins to babble almost incoherently, begging, “Fuck, now Eren, please, get in me.”

It feels like an awkward tussle, but Eren eventually slicks himself, pushes slowly into Jean, his mind blocking everything out except for the tight heat of Jean’s body, pulsing around his cock. He’s so hard it’s making him dizzy, leaking precome into Jean every time his groin aches in arousal. Jean grips Eren’s side, squeezes the soft skin next to his belly and pulls, and then it’s like all the slickness inside of Jean resettles itself and it feels  _so fucking good_  Eren thinks he might cry.

He sits there, huddled over Jean, fully sheathed inside of him and trembling, desperate not to come. Jean just keeps panting his name, “Eren, Eren, oh god, Eren,” and wraps his legs around him, hooks his ankles at his lower back. Jean starts to move, writhing beneath him like he’s desperate to be fucked, like having to wait is torture, and Eren drops his face to Jean’s neck, cursing like a fucking sailor and barely managing to say, “Jesus  _fuck_  Jean, if you don’t stop moving I’m gonna come.”

Jean just licks the lobe of Eren’s ear, pulls it into his mouth and bites, and says, “We are doing this every fucking day for the rest of our lives.”

Eren laughs, delirious and stupid sounding, pumping his hips slowly, finally. Jean lets go of these short, high pitched moans, and Eren is so fucked, he’s leaking so much precome from this he wonders if Jean can feel it, wonders if Jean’s ass will drip afterward, if Eren will have to clean him.

Thinking about it is making him lose his mind, so he stops moving again, this time sitting up a little, putting more weight on his knees. Jean whimpers, but it turns into a sort of growl when Eren reaches between them after licking his palm, gripping Jean’s dick. He looks down and watches it happen, watches the red tip of Jean's cock slip in and out of his fist, so aroused it’s almost sore looking.

Jean comes, like has so many times before, but this time it’s different. This time Eren can feel him clenching around his dick, fluttering in tight little bursts, in time with every pulsing wave of his orgasm. Eren stops holding back, begins to push just enough to have Jean practically sobbing, begging, gripping what little fat there is on Eren’s ass, tugging him forward.

Eren comes with a pitiful little shout, his face pressed into Jean’s chest. His shaking arms lose their strength, and he collapses on Jean in full, making Jean grunt and then laugh warmly, threading his fingers through Eren’s sweaty hair.

“Love you so much,” Eren mumbles, feeling more wasted that he ever has before, gone on the scent of Jean’s come, his skin, on the sensation of his cock softening inside of Jean. “So much, dude, I wouldn’t leave.”

Jean just keeps laughing softly, a sound so quiet that Eren half wonders if he isn’t crying too, not like it matters. Jean can do whatever the fuck he wants if this is what he plans on giving him nightly, apparently.

“Love you too,” he mumbles, kissing Eren’s hair.

And finally, after all this stupid fucking starting and stopping, it feels like things are gonna be fine.

-

Eren doesn’t quit his job, at least not right away. It’s a little weird though, how having some semblance of a plan makes it all easier to stomach, makes wearing the multicolored uniform less shameful and more something to be proud of. His manager even works with him, cuts down his hours and reshapes them so they’ll fit around his school schedule. It’s like this job has just become more important, even though it isn’t - like there’s a purpose to having it now, even though there always was. Maybe Eren just has the clarity of mind to see the shit he refused to see before. Jean still hates it when he says he was ‘worthless’.

He even thinks about emailing Armin. He would ask how he is, seeing what he’s doing, tell him about Jean and then laugh at the thought of his face when he says  _‘hey, I’m dating a dude, I think I’m pretty gay, how are you?’_  Armin is the most accepting person on the planet, so he would try not to look surprised and be all, “Wow, great!” The more he thinks about it, the more he misses him. Seeing Jean with Marco only solidifies it - it’s the next step for him, he’s decided.

It’s too cold to surf without a wetsuit now, so Eren shimmies into one of Marco’s, thankful they’re all relatively similar sizes here. Even Mina’s got a wetsuit on, and a board of her own, with an elaborately painted vine threaded through with tropical flowers painted on the flat of it. They paddle out the four of them, both Marco and Jean sitting back a little to let both Mina and Eren catch some waves. The colder temperatures mean it’s less crowded here, at this time in the morning too.

Mina catches a few, though she doesn’t jump up on most of them, rides her board on her stomach like a sponger. Eren even gets on, nearly toppling off the side once he jumps to stand, but then he’s on it, the water rushing him forward so quickly he almost can’t even see, like his vision tunnels out. It must only last for a few seconds, but then Eren’s heart feels like it’s beating out of his chest, and it’s a totally different kind of rush to skating - something beyond physical, elemental.

Jean is fucking screaming like a lunatic, paddling over to him and tackling him the minute he’s within reach, holding his face once he’s got a grip on his board, telling Eren how amazing he is. Jean nearly pulls them both under with his enthusiasm.

And Eren thinks maybe he was never doing anything wrong, not exactly, but that it never felt  _right_  - and not because of Jean, but because he knew he was worth more than what he’d given himself. Jean, thankfully, seems to agree. One wave conquered, onto the next.


End file.
